The grumpy thread

[Lord Sterling]

The productivity level they desired was 10 40minute jobs a day. Needless to say I never made bonus! I quit in the end due to stress (not only down to the travel patterns but it didn't help) and as you can probably tell I'm still really bitter. I think I need counselling.

 

The main worry for me is that all companies behave the same way these days. Will I ever cope with a job?

 

This is exactly what I'm finding more and more nowadays. Many companies are becoming increasingly target-driven which is fine when a human-being is considered and can handle it, but when targets are being "worked out" by "systems" this is when targets cannot be easily achieved and things get beyond stupid.

[dollywobbler]

It really winds me up - one reason I got out of big business. Talentless fuckwits in management just invent stupid procedures to make themselves too busy and clever to the other talentless fuckwits. I've got a pal who works for Tesco - it is genuinely frightening listening to some of his stories. Too many managers who've got a degree, but zero common sense and absolutely no idea of what it's like to be at the coalface.

[Lord Sterling]

It really winds me up - one reason I got out of big business. Talentless fuckwits in management just invent stupid procedures to make themselves too busy and clever to the other talentless fuckwits. I've got a pal who works for Tesco - it is genuinely frightening listening to some of his stories. Too many managers who've got a degree, but zero common sense and absolutely no idea of what it's like to be at the coalface.

 

Its the sign of things to come I'm afraid. I dont like working for big businesses/companies but when work comes along I dont really have much of a choice. Your right about fuckwit management types. One thing they dont seem to understand is when you treat your workers like crap and bully them, once out of the factory gates, you are fair game. Something I warned the bullying bastard supervisors at a warehouse I once worked at before I walked out.

 

I was once a stand-in supervisor, our normal supervisor was Ok, he had his good and bad days, when I stood in, I always made sure the production team were happy and comfortable with what they were doing, result? More coolers off the line with less broken/damaged/badly fitted parts.

[j-j]

Thick yet qualified management? An explanation of their origin and justification is explained in this excellent book:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Working-Yo ... 943&sr=1-1

 

The chapter about being a 'Master of your own stuff' will speak to many a shiter IMO

[Claypole]

I'm part time cleaning at the minute and it's ace.

 

The full time staff think you are thick as fxxx for a start so don't bother you. They have too many sales targets and all that KPI bollocks to worry about.

 

I have more than enough to do - especially if you have a touch of OCD about cleaning stainless hobs and cookers. I can spend 70% of one morning just sweeping then mopping the showroom. Ignore the clock and before you know it it's home time already.

 

And as I was dole scum beforehand I paid no tax on my first wage so it's full time money for now.

 

And I've enough wrapping and cardboard from recycling the kitchen packing materials to last me months.

[RedSparrow]

*This is not a plea for more cash to uni's, I think the problem is way too many students, way too many degree courses and way too many unis!!

 

Good to see someone else thinks that! It's all very p.c. to say that everyone should be entitled to a university education, but what's the point of striving to get 50% of the population to obtain a degree, if there aren't going to be the same number of degree-requiring jobs for them? There are already too many graduates in "menial" jobs, or simply unemployed, wondering what happened to the "a degree is a guarantee of a better paid job" promise.

 

How true.

Two of my kids have degrees and one works in a university and I'm sure she would agree with every word.

 

I often wonder how Finland copes with the very advanced and liberal education system that they have - any Finnish members care to comment on that?

 

They cope just fine.

I am moving to Finland in March. High taxes but I have never seen such a well run country in my life.

 

The problems we have in the UK which no politician will ever admit is that we have a massive overpopulation problem and fuck-all manufacturing base. And people are getting lazier and lazier by the day.

 

Finland and its people pride themselves on being self-sufficient.

[Angrydicky]

I work as a home shopping driver at one of the big supermarkets.

 

My immediate manager I get on very well with, although he's only been there a couple of months. He told me Home Shopping gets through more managers then any other department, since it started in 2007, we've got through five different managers. Basically there's a ridiculous amount of stress from senior management to get our department to make a profit. There was a letter from the store manager yesterday complaining about how Home Shopping has overpent £2000 on wages the previous week which was 'unauthorised' and it must stop. There are strict rules for pickers too, they must pick I think, 100 items every hour or face disciplinary action. The drivers get sent out with massive loads (up to 15 drops with up to 20 boxes of cat litter, coke and beer each) covering an area about 20 miles by 10 miles, in the rush hour with 4 hours to do it in. When we're late, or one of the pickers fucks up an order, it's the driver that gets all the blame from the customer. Drivers are expected to go out in all weathers in crap vans held together with gaffer tape, negotiate narrow residential streets with a big Luton van (where you can't park and have to dump the van in the middle of the road with the hazards on to make a delivery, then get loads of abuse from the idiot general public) and make huge heavy drops to the 10th floor of tower blocks where you have to block the middle of the carpark with the van and again, get abuse.

 

And do we get a break? In the three months I've been working there, I've had three official breaks. If you don't remember to "skip meal break" on the clocking in machine they dock you half an hour's pay to have a break. I eat my sandwiches in a traffic jam. The official verdict from management is that you "need to make time to have a break" which is absolute bollocks and it's rare you get a first shift easy enough to have time for even a 20 minute break before the second one. And for all this, we're paid exactly the same as someone stacking the shelves in the nice warm store, despite the huge amount of responsibilty, £2000 worth of shopping and a £50,000 van to look after. And don't get me started on when we were sent out in the heavy snow to do deliveries just before Christmas, most of the vans got stuck and on one occasion I had to knock on a door to borrow a spade so I could dig it out. This is because management only provided a spade and bag of sand in one of the six vans. Also most of the equipment is knackered, out of six sat navs most are broken, two brackets are broken, one won't stick to the screen, one has an upside down screen and they're generally crap, can rarely find addresses etc. I ended up buying my own one. About half the palm pilots (little hand held computers, that the customer signs on the doorstep) don't scan and about 10% of them have things wrong with them like a broken keyboard or refuse to sign in. Two of the mobile phones have cracked screens.

 

So yeah, working in big business is crap.

[barrett]

don't know if you know anyone that's joined the union at that place Dicky, but the management there absolutely hate it. Obviously there is nothing they can do, except try to 'persuade' you not to join, and then go out of thier way to get you fired. The breaks are a legal requirement (15 mins every 3.5 hours iirc) so they can't expect you to work through them. If you don't have enough time to complete your job and have breaks they can't do fuck-all. They can shout at you 'til they're blue in the face but they are powerless to act. they are a bunch of bastards and I'm glad I got out when I did, even though I've had no money coming in for 5 months now.

[55bloke]

Christ, how depressing this is all sounding. When did work become such a bloody nightmare? Has it always been like this?

[cms206]

I worked for the second largest prior to that where we in the main operated elderly equipment which had been refurbished (normally by Alloy Bodies in Manchester, Central Works at Heathrow or Terberg UK) and a start had been made on fleet replacement with the arrival of four new pushback tugs in 2006-2007, six new diesel tugs in 2007 and a new Citroen C1 in 2007 as a ramp car. The company was run tightly but there was some amount of come and go, all the vehicles carried a smart livery and we all had smart, well made uniforms.

 

We were taken over in January 2010 by the largest of the ground handling companies. Since that happened we were forced to use really rather rough equipment painted allover white which we hadn't been trained on, most of which was getting on for 12 years old and the only maintainance most of it had seen was having the fleetname changed the company changed it's name - three times in the last five years so far. The reigns were pulled right in, the uniform was changed to generic white shirts and black trousers of the most lousy quality I've seen anywhere, staff were hunted purely because of the contracts they were on, and management immediately took a dislike to our working practises despite us having a better H&S record than them... my contract was terminated on December 31st, but only after a fight because they were going to sack staff a week before Christmas for various reasons; my own letter of dismissal states "Some other substantial reason" as the reason.

 

A great job ruined by management who only have themselves in mind... it happens everywhere. If I could afford to move somewhere else, I'd be away like a shot.

[chaseracer]

... my contract was terminated on December 31st, but only after a fight because they were going to sack staff a week before Christmas for various reasons; my own letter of dismissal states "Some other substantial reason" as the reason...

WTF??!

 

If you're not a member of a trade union, talk to ACAS http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1365 sharpish.

[woolleyiain]

It's not much different over here, unfortunately. I lost a Tech last month (I should have a team of four, was down to three and then one of 'em left), But was expected to book the same amount of work for the two that I had. So two Tech's, work for four people. Got a pasting for people doing overtime, the customer's hated it because one day jobs were taking 2-3 days, we're getting rough CSI reports now which are going to cost me about 2k in wages this month, I'm still trying to shove ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag and all my manager can say is "BRING IT IN!!." Fuckwit.

[55bloke]

Sounds familiar - AGAIN!! The place I work has taken on loads more work, but is still recruiting staff. Can only get through the work by doing overtime and getting agency staff in. Now we've been told we won't be getting our bonus, coz the company has had to spend way over bugdet on overtime and agency people!!!

[chaseracer]

Now we've been told we won't be getting our bonus...

Bet the senior managers get theirs...

[cms206]

... my contract was terminated on December 31st, but only after a fight because they were going to sack staff a week before Christmas for various reasons; my own letter of dismissal states "Some other substantial reason" as the reason...

WTF??!

 

If you're not a member of a trade union, talk to ACAS http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1365 sharpish.

 

Already dealing with the full time official at the Unite office in Glasgow who had been dealing with my case who is taking the case to Legal to see if there is a case for a tribunal. Hopefully there is, as I'm well informed that the company who shat on my from a great height haven't yet won a tribunal... ever. And we're talking regular tribunals.

 

Seriously though, no shit - "Some other substantial reason, namely that a customer requested my removal" - theres a lot of politics involved regarding a manager who fell out with me because I didn't say "how high" when asked to jump, but the long and short of it is "She doesn't like you, so... well... kindly fuck off and don't let the door hit your arse on the way out". Never seen a company like it.

[meggersdog]

Two grumps today.

Firstly the twat who bought my Alfa has left negative feedback.Sold with a major fault,aparantly.If that was the case,which it wasn't,then why buy it in the first place.One negative in six years and I've now got 90% and ebay have even taken one away 147 instead of 148.Well then matey looks like I will be buying the starter motor you have listed on one of my other accounts.Not going to pay but leave you a negative anyway.

Secondly just took the gearbox out of my Discovery to do the clutch.New clutch kit arrived from paddocks yesterday opened it up today to find no release bearing.On top of that it's the fugging clutch broken fork again.I fitted a genuine one from the main dealers two years ago to avoid having to take the 'box out again.As it was breaking up it wasn't pushing on the release bearing squarely so that has scored the clutch cover.

[Lankytim]

I worked as a trucker for the Sainsburies distribution centre in Stoke and I have never worked for such a bunch of idiotic unprofessional bullying twats in all my life. The class themselves as a "caring" employer, always looking out for their workers but all they do is invent offences and punishments to fast track employees through diciplinaries and out of the company, its a bullies paradise. One piece of advice I took from the agency rep is "you can't win, so don't even try, they have you whatever you do". The job and hence my life was a total misery because of these bastards.

 

Well, I now work for a great company with next to no stress and a really great atmosphere. The management are fantastic too. Plenty of breaks and very reasonable hours! The only thing I have to worry about is the possibility of doing time should I ever meet some of my ex-workmates now they don't have any kind of hold over my life .

[CIH]

I use to work on an insurance call centre for a certain big provider who claim to be "good with stuff". They moniter literally every second of the day. One time I was called into office, 2mins before finish time, and made to explain my going off "avaliable" at certain times ie;

"At 4.29pm friday last week, you went unavalibale. What wre you doing exactly ?"

They ran off a list, kept me back late for 30 or so minutes, then suspended me. I took the hint and never went back. I had been with the company, albeit back office, for nearly 6 years prior.

 

I think local management just hated me because they were all disingenuous pricks who claimed to love their "fun and exciting" call centre jobs but would fight viciously for any assignment that got them away from the place, and I refushed to play along. Also, importing their pictures from the intranet into paint and decorating them as pirates, spacemen etc when I was bored (all the time).

[55bloke]

This thread needs to be brought to the attention of some management types somewhere. Somehow.

[Negative Creep]

My working experience is that they only care about figures and percentages. Thus it creates a totally artificial working environment that stifles any independent creativity or thought as they think up yet more schemes and regulations to make everything more difficult. Thus you end up speaking to a customer, can see their point and that you could easily resolve it for them, but you have no power to do so

[55bloke]

My working experience is that they only care about figures and percentages. Thus it creates a totally artificial working environment that stifles any independent creativity or thought as they think up yet more schemes and regulations to make everything more difficult. Thus you end up speaking to a customer, can see their point and that you could easily resolve it for them, but you have no power to do so

 

But surely, the best way to get good percentages and figures is to have a happy, appreciated workforce? Pissed off staff do not work well!

[dollywobbler]

They obviously work well enough, just as having not-enough customer services staff makes perfect sense. Leave the customers on hold, they'll keep coming.

[rml2345]

All the big companies are the same from what I gather. I work in the call centre for a large international bank (won't say which, but they had some issues with statements last month, surprise surprise) and we constantly have pressure from management to meet about 20 KPI, including call handling time, time spent writing notes, hold, transfers, "comfort break" etc. and its utterly utterly ridiculous. We also have to meet targets on customer satisfaction surveys every month, or face greater scrutiny, and sacking if no progress is made. Doesn't matter that you can get 0% one month and 100% the next.

You can have a 295 second call, or you can have customer service. Not both.

Do the management listen to the staff though? Do they hell as like! No one fixes the problems. We just work there, and agree with the customers about how useless it all is.

Everywhere you go now its all targets, and KPI and other irrelevant bullshit. Gives the managers lots of pointless meetings and allows them all to be cnuts.

 

Thanks, I needed that rant.

[j-j]

My working experience is that they only care about figures and percentages. Thus it creates a totally artificial working environment that stifles any independent creativity or thought as they think up yet more schemes and regulations to make everything more difficult. Thus you end up speaking to a customer, can see their point and that you could easily resolve it for them, but you have no power to do so

 

But surely, the best way to get good percentages and figures is to have a happy, appreciated workforce? Pissed off staff do not work well!

 

I agree but how do you achieve that with today's media driven workers' expectations.

 

Few months ago my friends and I were all over in Ibiza for my Sister's wedding. The staff at the hotel in Santa Eulalia were the friendliest and most competent I've seen. It appeared to be their pleasure to work there without a hint of smarm. What did that place have right that similarly paid workers here don't?

[55bloke]

It's in Ibiza!! Why wouldn't you be happy!!

[Negative Creep]

I've no idea how you could enjoy working in a place where you deal with Club 18-30 tossers and have to put up with dance music all the time

[55bloke]

Yeah, but it's a beautiful island, in the Med! Gotta be better than this bloody miserable place! Sorry, I don't like January!!

[Negative Creep]

I think I'd rather go on a SAGA coach trip to Grimsby then a Club 18-30 holiday

[Guest]

With regards to the "pissed off employee" situation, I was one of those for a few years. Main reasons were an office move to some crappy town in the sticks, poor/weak management, progression not relating to performance, essentially being demoted to a completely bottom rung job (doing something I hated) as a result of restructuring, shortly before losing over 10% of my pay as a result of a subsequent "job evaluation" exercise.

 

Basically, I had put in a few years of hard work and my job went downhill - it was then I figured out that within that section there was no point trying. The only progression was onto management, pretty much only based on how long you'd been there - even then you might never get it, in which case you'll be in the same lousy position forever. The turnover rate was quite something - enthusiastic young people would be hired, figure out that most people end up doing the same job until retirement, then leave within the year. It was the complete lack of hope which sealed it, the conditions only got worse as time went by. Fair enough if it wasn't a bad job, but it was horrible and you were treated like dirt.

 

This led to a very interesting period of my life - I figured out that my position had changed into something so unimportant that what I did had very little influence on anything. Whilst not being bothered enough to quit, I was jaded enough that I didn't mind the idea of being fired. I would go for a load of whisky on my lunch and spend the entire day drawing pictures in MS Paint or removing words from press releases for surreal effect. Some days I would do no work at all - quite literally. If I was left unaccompanied, I would play Snake on my Nokia 3210. When I heard that they would be taking new ID photos, I stopped shaving for a few weeks resulting in a terrorist-style appearance on my badge. If anyone phoned up who was both angry and thick, I would speak to them with the same level of enthusiasm you might when reading the instructions for Micro Chips. If I ended up angry myself, I would go to the copier room and kick it in for a laugh. Either that or pretend to go for a slash, when in reality I just went to sniff the alcohol hand gel.

 

Then I went and got a better job! Moral of the story - never try.

[Lord Sterling]

But surely, the best way to get good percentages and figures is to have a happy, appreciated workforce? Pissed off staff do not work well!

 

I agree but how do you achieve that with today's media driven workers' expectations.

 

Few months ago my friends and I were all over in Ibiza for my Sister's wedding. The staff at the hotel in Santa Eulalia were the friendliest and most competent I've seen. It appeared to be their pleasure to work there without a hint of smarm. What did that place have right that similarly paid workers here don't?

 

As I said before, when I was a stand-in supervisor, I made sure workers were happy and comfortable, as a result production and quality went up.

 

Some people in different countries react differently in different situations, here in Britain our stress levels at work are driven to the edge, hence why we dont appreciate our jobs so much.

 

There are many reasons why Ibiza workers have different attitudes to similarly paid British workers. Ibiza would have a different structure/atmosphere, better weather, less rules, more patience and people are generally more relaxed, happy and accepting of thier surroundings and situation.

 

Grump for today:

 

The cupboard under the stairs is normally a place to store shoes and coats. Although it does have that job (just) it also seems to be forever stuffed full of crap we dont need/use. I've made a few aborted/half-arsed attempts at sorting it out, but somehow, we seem to accumulate more junk. Tonight, I took the Christmas tree down, secured it in its box and thought to put it back in the shoe cupboard, looking inside its stuffed full of rubbish.

 

In my infinate wisdom I decided to see if I could create a little more space, before long the front room was full of car crap. The amount of car-related crap I've got is amazing, where did I get it all? It seems to be stuff I get and think 'hmmm, that could be useful later on' and it never is. Although I have 2 rented garages they are both stuffed full of car. I dont have a garden shed and the loft is utterly crap, dusty and not easily accessible, I hardly ever go up there unless I really have to, dont have much of a choice though.